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Friday, February 17, 2017

Spending time with the one you love

My husband and I try to have lunch together at least once a week. He and I are fortunate enough to work only a few blocks apart, and that Tuesday lunch is a treat. It is wonderful to see him in the middle of a busy working day.

But we can't always make that lunch date. There have been many times when one of us has to cancel and it is really hard to reschedule it (Sorry, Honey!).The important point is that we try to carve out additional couple time, which researchers say is increasingly difficult to do. Researchers tracked couples' time spent together (exclusively) and with their children across the U.S., Spain and France and the results are mixed. Parents in France and Spain are spending more time with their partners, and parents in Spain and the U.S. are spending more family time together.While the study didn't make direct correlations, it did indicate that factors like working outside of the home and the cultural norms of the country influenced the time differences. Families in France and Spain, for example, spend about 80 minutes on a meal together. (I don't think I spend that much time on a meal if you include all the time it takes to cook, eat and clean up afterward.)While this is all great to know, it doesn't provide me with any tips of how to spend more time with my wonderful husband. So, I guess he and I will have to put our heads together over a Tuesday lunch sometime soon and work that out together.How do you carve out time for your spouse? Tell me in the comments.